Rethinking Leadership

Introduction

Leadership has been defined in terms of traits, behavior, motivation, interaction patterns, role relationships or occupation of an administrative position. Most definitions reflect the assumption that it involves a process whereby intentional influence is exerted over people to guide, structure and facilitate activities and relations in a group or organization. Gary Yukl, who has studied the phenomenon for more than three decades, suggests that leadership is “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (Yukl 2010, p. 26).

One viewpoint that Yukl emphasizes is that leadership ...